One of the reasons why employee engagement and talent retention are becoming such hot topics in leadership and management circles is because of the growing challenge of how to ensure your organization is tapping into the full potential of your workforce.

Unfortunately, as Mark Royal, Senior Principal with Hay Group Insight, revealed at the conference, 30% of employees feel they lack authority to do their job effectively.

The first step is to make sure you hire people who are ready to take care of themselves; people who understand their sense of purpose and what will help them achieve it. Of course, what leaders need to do next is then empower those on their team to give their best work; to trust them to do what’s necessary and give them opportunities to learn, grow and thrive.

Again to share another great quote from John Foster, Head of Talent and Organization at Hulu – “The key to highly engaged employees is helping them be self directing and self correcting.”

What is interesting is the concept of “authority” being passed from the manager to the employee, giving the more junior person the power to push themselves and to be truly self-motivated.

I always love to work with other people who work hard. It pushes me, and makes me feel great about how productive we are as a team. It makes me proud to celebrate their successes, because we are giving credit where credit is due. There is no jealousy in being just damn impressed with someone’s work and work ethic.